CodeChef on Campus - October 2009

Welcome to the 1st edition of CodeChef on Campus the official CodeChef Campus Newsletter

CodeChef has come a long way since its beta launch in Jan 09. We hosted our first programming contest in March and soon started looking at other ways we can encourage the developer community.  One of our earliest initiatives was CodeChef Campus Chapters aimed at helping students become better programmers.  The response from you guys has been awesome and within a few of months we already have 35 active Campus Chapters from all over India.

In an effort to keep you updated with what is happening on all our Campus Chapters we plan to dish out a CodeChef Monthly Campus Newsletter.  Here’s what we've got for you this month:
· Recommended Campus Activity with Topic of the Month
· Update on Activities Undertaken by Student Reps

Topic of the Month

Overview: Each month we will be picking a programming topic to discuss in detail on our wiki.  We will provide links, tutorials, and practice problems to help you master the subject.  This month's topic is Recursion and Memoization and has been explained with the example of Sums in a Triangle.

Suggested Activity: Once a Chapter member solves one of the practice problems mentioned  in the tutorial he/she can conduct a session where the solution is explained to other participants on Campus. If required, this can be done with the help of a professor.

Campus Chapter Activities

Spreading the word

There certain Student reps that have proactively tried to get the word out to their peers; we feel they deserve a special mention.
· Rajneesh from IEET Baddi has created a website for his CodeChef Campus Chapter – Encipher. The site lists his Chapter members, gives details about the program and displays contact information. He has also created Facebook and Orkut groups for his members.
· Paritosh and Sailesh from Delhi College of Engineering have put up an announcement on their DCE forum about their contest that will be hosted on 27th October.
Write into us at campus@codechef.com and spread the word about your chapter's activities.

Sessions Organized

Two engineering colleges in Mumbai MPSTME, NMIMS and Fr Conceicao College of Engineering organized sessions in which Vikram (~vix on CodeChef Twitter) demonstrated  "The Basic Implementation of a Search Engine" The video is put up on the blog and you can also check out the pictures on our Flickr Stream

Campus Contests hosted on CodeChef

We have hosted various college contests as a part of the Campus Chapters Program. In every contest the students themselves set the problems, promoted the contests and organized the entire event. With countless number of emails exchanged and the occasional goof ups we have successfully hosted contests for:
· Manipal Institute of Technology
· MPSTME, NMIMS Campus, Mumbai
· Fr. Conceicao College of Engineering, Mumbai
· Thapar University
· Pune Institute of Computer Technology  Contest 1 and Contest 2

This month we are going to host contests for:

· Delhi College of Engineering
· VNIT Nagpur
· NIT Suratkal

We'd really like to hear more about what your chapter is doing and suggestions on ways we can help.  Let us know if you enjoyed the newsletter and how we can make it better.  Send us a mail on campus@codechef.com with your thoughts - let’s hear each other out :)